Schiller InstituteCALL FOR
LAROUCHE MEDICAL TASK FORCE

Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., economist, statesman, and Democratic Presidential pre-candidate made the following statement on July 11, 2001:

"Health care of course, is emblematic of the general welfare. In the post war period, with the experience of the 1930s, the experience of wartime medicine we, in this country, enacted the Hill-Burton Act. While the progress under that act was not always what we would have wished, nonetheless, we made progress. We had a good national health-care policy under Hill-Burton. Sometimes we didn't live up to it, but the policy was good. Then, under Nixon, we had a change. The HMO Act was brought in to repeal Hill-Burton. And since then, especially since the collapse of New York City, and Big MAC in 1975, what had once been the fine medical system, the medical-care system of cooperation among public and private institutions and physicians, began to be destroyed. And over recent years, it's been destroyed at an increasing rate.

This has been accompanied by a philosophy which says we don't care about people, we care about shareholders. We no longer care about public responsibility for the general welfare. And people who are considered not so desirable, will get less care, and will probably depart our company a bit earlier. We've now come to the point that none of us is going to survive unless we restore the general welfare principle."

We, the undersigned agree with Mr. LaRouche. Our nation faces an immediate crisis in health conditions, where millions of our citizens are denied access to necessary health care services due to lack of insurance and/or due to financial practices of Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), which have placed shareholder values over the promotion of the General Welfare. In a financial austerity-driven environment there has been a dramatic reduction of U.S. hospitals, hospital beds, the absolute number of nurses, the nurse-patient ratio, as well as the number and ratio of public health and specialty clinics and staff, in proportion to the population. The health care crisis is presently but one leading economic consequence of a general worldwide financial collapse.

The illegal closing of D.C. General Hospital, the only public hospital in our nation's capital, is paradigmatic of this national crisis. This situation has already resulted, as predicted by local and national medical experts, in a dramatic increase in morbidity and mortality. We must draw the line at DC General. If we cannot defend public health in the nation's capital, we cannot defend it anywhere in the nation or the world.

We, therefore take this opportunity to join with doctors, nurses, medical personnel, patients, and other concerned citizens nationwide, in forming the LaRouche Medical Task Force. The task force will serve as a research and intervention unit, to document the genocidal effects of these policies, as well as to expose those responsible for promoting and executing such policies. The immediate objective is to mobilize and rally the necessary national forces to return our nation to the principle of the General Welfare and to restore all hospital, clinic, and health facilities which have been closed over the past several years and to build the required new health care infrastructure, which is necessary, not only to reverse the increases in morbidity and mortality, but to achieve increased life expectancy and better health overall. This effort, lawfully begins with restoring a full service, fully funded public hospital, strategically located on the grounds of D.C. General, to our nation's capital.

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